Dear Cassie (24 page)

Troyer ripped a blank piece of paper off the pad and dropped it on the ground next to me. I guess that was her way of saying she wasn’t talking to me anymore.

Fine, now I was totally alone. Even Troyer had deserted me. Not like I could blame her.

I guess I crave loneliness. I certainly try to create it. I do anything I can to cover up the loneliness that comes from knowing I had something that would have been connected to me for my whole life and I destroyed it.

I can never be alone enough to snuff that out.

6 Fucking Days to Go

I
woke up alone in my tent, which was good considering that was how I’d fallen asleep. I don’t know what I was expecting. That Ben would come and see me during the night? That he would actually not have given up on me, so I could push him away again? At least his attention had been something I could count on, until I’d fucked that up, too.

I should have known I’d push him too far. I push everyone too far.

I looked at the red top of my tent and couldn’t help wondering if this was what the thing inside of me saw before it was no longer inside me—safety and red and soft all around. If it was floating in that light, until I forced it out into the world.

Kind of like me, except I was waiting for Rawe to come wake me up and tell me how far I was going to have to hike before I was allowed to get in here again. The thing that had been inside me had no choice to come back.

I had made the choice for it.

Choice.

Calling what I had to do a
choice
was a joke. Anyone who described what I had to do as
freedom of choice
has never had to do what I had to do. There is no choice in it. Who would actually choose what I put that thing inside me through? What I put myself through? What I’m still going through?

I listened to the birds. Felt the sun filtering through the red of the tent. It was going to be another long day of Rawe trying to break open our shells. Well, really just mine. She didn’t seem to be pushing Nez and Troyer the way she was pushing me.

I pictured Rawe like someone at a seafood buffet, a plate of crab legs and lobster tails in front of her. She was wearing a bib, drooling, waiting for my shell to open so she could get her claws into the soft parts I hid from her. The soft parts that probably even she herself hid.

The soft, scary parts Ben had seen at the infirmary. The ones that were too much for him.

“Breakfast in ten,” I heard Rawe call. I knew she’d put her hands around her mouth like a megaphone. Knew her braid was tight, tight, tight.

I unzipped my tent and stepped out, feeling even more bleary-eyed than I had when I was sleeping in the cabin. Newsflash, sleeping on the ground makes you feel like dog shit.

Everyone was milling around the dead fire from last night, waiting for instructions from Rawe and Nerone. I guess it was sort of the way it had been in school, where you would be sitting in the auditorium with your classmates waiting for someone to go up on stage and tell you something you were going to ignore, or in my case, that you would skip out on entirely. Except here Rawe and Nerone had our undivided attention and they were far too boring to deserve that.

“Troyer, Eagan, you’re on breakfast duty,” Nerone muttered.

Rawe stood next to him like they were bookends, one with a square head and one with a pointy head. I guess they weren’t picking our duties without thought. Considering Stravalaci’s past, it was probably a good idea to keep him away from anything he could poison.

“Yes, sir,” Eagan lisped.

Troyer stood there.

“Leisner, Stravalaci, Claire, you’re on tents,” Nerone said.

The three of them grumbled and walked with scuffing feet to the first tent. I thought about my tent. Was there anything inside it I wouldn’t want Ben to see? Why the hell did I care?

That left Nez and me, and I knew before Rawe even said it that she was planning to fuck me royally.

“Nez, Wick, you two go gather some wood,” she said, looking right at me to let me know she knew she was fucking me royally.

“Can I trade with someone?” Nez asked. I saw her look over at Ben, who was taking down Eagan’s tent. At least I didn’t have to see Eagan fumbling and struggling with it again.

I knew she was saying it because of me and not because of the wood, which was fine—I felt the same way. I didn’t have the energy to ask to switch partners, mostly because I knew it wouldn’t make a difference anyway.

“No,” Rawe said, clenching her teeth. Nerone stood next to her and clenched his teeth, too, a united front of different-headed bookends.

Nez and I didn’t move.

“That means today,” Nerone said. “We’re all waiting for breakfast.”

Nez huffed and started walking quickly toward the woods at the north of the camp.

“And get enough for a decent size fire,” Rawe called after her, like she wasn’t satisfied with Nerone having the last word.

Nez was walking so fast I had to run to catch up to her. And I wanted to catch up to her. If I had to go look for wood while other things looked for us, there was no way I wanted to be alone.

It felt immediately cooler when I entered the woods, the shade from the trees coloring everything gray.

Nez stopped and turned to me. “What, are you chasing me now?”

“I wouldn’t have to if you weren’t walking so fast,” I said, surprised that I was actually out of breath.

“I want to get this over with,” she said. “The less time I have to spend alone with you, the better.”

“Fuck off, Nez,” I said.

“Do you ever say anything else?” Nez asked, her lips puckered like my words were something she didn’t like the taste of.

“I never want to say anything else,” I said, then added, “to you.”

“Because you’re jealous,” Nez said.

“Of what?” I laughed.

“Me,” she said. “Ben and me.”

A breeze blew through, whipping her black, black hair in front of her face like shadows. The look of it made me shiver.

“You’re delusional,” I said.

She shrugged. “Ben says you’re jealous and he’s right.”

“You don’t know shit and Ben knows even less,” I said, feeling hot needles start to poke at my hands, trying to force them into fists.

“I see the way you look at him,” Nez said, almost sang.

“I don’t.” I paused. “Look at him.”

She snorted. “We always want what we can’t have.”

A crow cawed and bounded from one tree to the next.

“You suck, Nez,” I said, starting to walk past her. I should have kept walking. I should have ignored her. I never did what I should do.

“I suck?” She laughed. “At least I use your first name,
Cassie
. Do you use mine? Do you even
know
mine?”

“I never asked you to use my first name,” I said, spinning to look at her, not wanting to admit I actually didn’t know hers.

“You call Ben by his first name. Ever think about that?” she asked.

“How do you know what I call him?” I asked, immediately feeling silly for it. It didn’t matter. Nez could see right through me. Regardless of how much I said I hated Ben, how much I acted like I wanted him to leave me alone, she was right—I did use his first name.

“You don’t even call Troyer Laura,” Nez said, her voice rising to meet the top of the trees.

“Neither do you,” I retorted.

“But I’m not her friend, am I?” Nez asked. Her face was calm, as still as the sky far, far above us.

“I wouldn’t know,” I said, searching for something to say next. “I don’t know what you are, Nez,” I hissed. If it bothered her so much I was using her last name, I was going to use it so much it made her ears bleed.

“You think you’re so tough,” she said, “but I see you. You’re scared, scared of everyone, scared of yourself.”

“You’re the one who should be scared,” I said, even though her words hit me right in my lower stomach, punched me there, like I usually did.

“Oh really?” she asked. “I know things, Cassie. Things about you.”

“Don’t,” I said, though I’m not sure why. I didn’t have any idea what she was going to say, but for some reason I knew that once she said it, that would be it.

The last straw.

“I saw your file.” She smiled evilly. “Troyer’s, too. You know it has medical info in it, right?”

“You’re a fucking liar,” I said, like I was responding to any annoying thing that came out of her mouth, but really I felt the woods around me start to spin like I was in the center of a merry-go-round. The trees were the horses, the leaf- and dried-pine-needle-covered ground the beach-ball-colored base. Could Nez be telling the truth? Could what I’d done that day at the clinic be in some “file” that had been forwarded to Rawe? Did that mean other people knew? Ben? Or worse, my parents?

Was that why Ben was ignoring me?

My stomach felt like the hull of a ship riding wave after wave.

“Listen,” Nez said matter-of-factly, “I’m not the one you should be angry with. You should be angry with yourself.”

I couldn’t talk. The hot needles were back in my hands, my neck, my chest. Angry little pricks, buzzing like bees.

Nez looked at me, waiting.

When I didn’t move, she spoke again, the words seeping out. “You should be disgusted with yourself.”

I felt myself zoom over to her like a magnet. I couldn’t help it. I was right in her face, my teeth bared. I said nothing, but I felt a growl in the pit of my stomach that wanted to well up.

“Forget it,” Nez said, turning away from me. “You’re not worth it.”

For some reason, that sentence went right to the center of my chest. The same place I still felt the sting from Aaron’s actions. Felt the pain of being sent here and having my father seem not to care either way. Felt it in the lack of words from my mother for years and years.

Nez bent down in front of a tree to gather some sticks and, without even thinking, I lunged for her. I meant only to shove her, to let her know I wasn’t going to let her fuck with me, that I wasn’t going to let
anyone
ever again. That was what I’d meant, but instead I pushed her off her feet and she fell. Hard. Hard enough that her face smacked the tree and I heard her nose crunch.

She screeched, loud. So loud her voice broke through the shadows around us like harsh, angry sunlight.

“Nez,” I said, reaching out for her. I hadn’t meant to hurt her, just scare her. Maybe I had sort of meant to hurt her, but really this wasn’t even about her. I tried to pick her up, but she squirmed away from me. Her hands covered her nose like it was going to fall off.

“I didn’t mean to,” I said.

“You did mean to, and now you’re in deep,” she said, standing up, still covering her nose as she ran toward camp.

Fuck.

I followed behind her, could hear her pushing through the woods, calling for Rawe. She moved like she was running through the jungle with a machete—fast, thunderous. If she was really that hurt, she didn’t seem like it.

From up ahead, I saw Nez enter the clearing where our camp was. I wasn’t ready to face Rawe. To face whatever being “in deep” would really mean. I hid behind a tree and watched as Nez fell to her knees and started to wail.

Rawe ran over to her. Troyer ran, too, and stood behind Rawe, who turned and grimaced at her unexpected shadow.

“What the hell happened?” Rawe asked.

“Wick pushed me,” Nez cried through her hands. “She hit me. Look at my nose.”

I could tell she was making herself cry, that though she might have been in pain, it wasn’t as much as she was claiming. But I
had
pushed her. Her nose was swollen and bleeding, so it didn’t matter what had really happened. I knew that about this. I know that about everything.

“Wick, get over here,” Rawe yelled.

I was still hiding behind the tree. I didn’t move.

“Now,” Rawe growled; she must have sensed I was there. It’s not like I was known for my tracking or camouflage skills.

I walked over to the three of them with my head down. Nez’s hands were covering her nose and mouth like the mask the doctor wore at the clinic, but her black eyes hit mine. Her way of saying,
I told you so.

“What happened?” Rawe asked, looking at me.

“Nothing,” I said, unsure why I was bothering to lie. Something had definitely happened.

“What’s rule number three?” Rawe asked, putting her arm around Nez and helping her up.

“No fighting,” I mumbled.

“What’s that?” Rawe said, cupping her hand around her ear like a smart-ass.

“No fighting,” I said. “But I didn’t hit her.” I wanted Rawe to know that.

I looked over at Troyer. She was shaking like she was either afraid of me or afraid
for
me.

Probably both.

“She did,” Nez said, her voice thick with tears. “She pushed me.”

“Did you?” Rawe asked. Her lips were a thin pink line while she waited for my answer. “This will go a lot better for you if you tell the truth.”

“I did,” I fumbled, “but—”

“But what? I don’t see a scratch on you,” Rawe interrupted. “Did she hit you first?”

How could I tell her Nez had started it with words? With words that hurt me more than her nose hurt her? I couldn’t.